Summerfruit NZ is looking closely at Justice Cooke's judgment from the judicial review into the MPI directive regarding plant material, released on 23 August. Once we have a full understanding of the implications for the industry we will be in contact with growers and the wider summerfruit industry. Certainly Summerfruit NZ is hopeful that high value genetic material can be retained and also supports the payment of reasonable compensation as directed by Justice Cooke.
Our growers have made it clear to us that biosecurity is of high importance to them, and we will continue to make biosecurity our priority on their behalf.
In the future, our focus is on substantially improving the process for importing plant material into New Zealand. For our industry to grow and meet the targets we are setting, we need access to new and innovative genetic material. For that to happen it's essential that we have an agile, reliable system, free of bottlenecks for importing plant material into New Zealand.
We believe this is totally feasible and look forward to working on these improvements with MPI and the wider industry.